


Tradition

by ssa_archivist



Category: Smallville
Genre: M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-12-25
Updated: 2001-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-01 04:39:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/352023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssa_archivist/pseuds/ssa_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex thinks about traditions. Holiday story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tradition

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks goes to elyn who put up with my whining and made 

## Tradition

by soo

<http://www.slashaholics.org/soo/index.php>

* * *

Disclaimer: If I owned them, they would be having a much more interesting holiday. 

Author this much better than it was. Any mistakes are all mine. Thanks also goes out to Kate and Soul Kitchen (<http://soulkitchen.dymphna.net/>) who inspired this fic. 

* * *

Lex looked down at the phone and frowned. He'd been looking forward to going to Zermatt with Bruce since last year. It was a tradition. 

A tradition that had started in boarding school when Bruce found out that Lex was going to spend the holidays at school. The Luthors had never been very big on the holidays. There was the traditional LuthorCorp Christmas party, where he vainly hid in the coat closet. There was the perfunctory holiday dinner where, even as a child, he could feel the tension radiating in the air. After his mother died, even the little celebrating they did had vanished. So completely, in fact, that his father wasn't even going to come home from a business trip for the holiday. 

Bruce had encouraged, cajoled, and finally begged Lex to join Alfred and him that year, and they had spent every Christmas together since. These days, though, the two of them would meet up in Gotham, fly out to Milan, stop a day in the city, and then helicopter out to Zermatt, spending the holidays skiing, relaxing, and having fun. 

It was a good tradition -- at least until today. Until he found out how a normal family celebrated the holidays. 

Clark had bounded into his office, bubbling over with energy and excitement, and declared that they had to go for a walk -- that it was too good a day to be cooped up in a stuffy house. He had relented without a thought and trudged out into the snow, barely remembering to throw on a jacket. 

Out and around the house they went, walking slowly in silence, basking in the warmth of the winter sun. As they headed into the garden, it was as if a dam broke inside Clark, and he began to talk excitedly about the upcoming holidays. 

Lex had heard about Christmas pageants, sleigh rides, and midnight masses before, but he'd never been convinced that people did those things. And even if they did, he never thought that he would ever be friends with anyone that actually enjoyed them. 

Clark's enthusiasm for these...traditions had bubbled up and over onto him. As he had listened to Clark, he began to imagine himself going to a Christmas pageant. He could even picture himself going on a sleigh ride and going to midnight mass -- as long as he went with Clark. But those were things one did with one's family or a girlfriend, not with a fifteen-year-old boy. Not unless you wanted to raise unwanted speculation, and that was the last thing he needed right now. 

Lex sighed. For the first time since childhood, he wanted to celebrate the holidays in a more traditional manner. But he couldn't -- at least, not with the person that he most wanted to. 

Lex picked up the phone and punched in one of the few numbers that he had memorized. "This is Bruce Wayne's cell phone. Leave a message and someone will return your call." 

For a moment, he thought he'd go through with it. "Bruce, it's Lex. I'm just calling...to say that I won't be making it this Christmas. I have...other plans." Lex twisted the phone cord around his finger. Plans that included sleigh rides, warm blankets and Clark Kent. "Sorry about the short notice but something...came out of nowhere. I'll make it up to you after New Years. Just make sure that you have a good time." Lex paused. "Don't forget to wish Alfred Merry Christmas for me." He hung up the phone and swiveled in his chair to look out at the garden. Snow had begun to fall and cover the grounds where they had walked, but if he looked hard enough, he could make out the faint footprints in the snow. 


End file.
